VIAF stats and improved matching

The Virtual International Authority File continues to both grow and improve. In July the sixteen source files together had 10,759, 910 usable name records, and 70.31% had related bibliographic records for matching. 30.33% of the name records matched at least one other source. Compare to April, where nine source files had a 28.36% match rate.

It’s human review that shows where the matching algorithms need tweaking. I had spotted that source records for Laozi were not matching up. My colleagues Thom Hickey and Jenny Toves identified the problem and fixed it. The number of headings retrieved for Laozi was reduced from 108 to 3. Jenny provided these before and after screen shots, an indication of improved matching for others like it.